In March, the Guardian Small Business Network and UPS took 10 small and medium-sized businesses on a trade mission to Atlanta, Georgia, to help them meet valuable contacts and overcome the challenges of exporting to the US market. Six months on, we find out the opportunities they’ve gained from the trip.
Joe Kinch, founder of Joe’s Teas Co
We’ve had a really fantastic year. In the six months since the trip it’s been our plan to get into the States. The trip taught me the requirements to export, which I’ve put into action. We’ve became FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] registered in June and that was one of the biggest hurdles to overcome. It opened my eyes to the changes we needed to make to our packaging for the US market – even small tweaks can make the difference of your product working in a new market or not.
And we’ve had our first order to the US – the tea soon be served in health spas in New Jersey and around the New York area. Without the trip, we wouldn’t be at that point. As a result of a networking session during the trip, we’ve been in touch with the US buyer for Whole Foods Market. We’ve also doubled in [size] over the past year.
Alex Epstein, founder and creator of Concoction, a customised haircare brand
The trade mission was a great opportunity for us to meet US-based importers and to understand what they’re looking for. It also boosted our profile. An American company has bought the licence to sell Concoction in the US – they will manufacture and distribute the products there. While we didn’t meet that company on the trade mission, they were pleased that we took part – it showed we were making serious efforts to enter the US market.
The company is based in Ohio, but they’re a nationwide player and our product will be sold in big beauty chains across the US.
There’s one retailer that wants to launch the brand out there. They want to roll out to every store in major cities including LA, Chicago and Atlanta. It’s more cost-effective to manufacture the products locally, but we still have absolute control over the brand in the US.The deal is due to be signed in the next month or so.
John Wood, chief executive of Heimdall Protective Tech, formerly Plastic Castle
We’ve completely rebranded the company since the trade mission – it’s now called Heimdall Protective Tech. Iris Worldwide [the branding agency that offered advice during one of the sessions on the trade mission] helped us with it – through [managing director and trade mission speaker] Ashley Grice. The rebrand, including the new website, puts the focus on our products – the whole idea is to make us better for the export market.
Although we’ve not started exporting to the US, we’re talking to a lot of potential customers there. A lot of the R&D [research and development] for US sports protection goods is done in Canada. UKTI in Atlanta gave me more of an idea of the opportunities in ice hockey and equine sports.
We just got the American patent for our product. We met with lawyers about it while we were in Atlanta. While we didn’t use them to confirm the patent, the background information I gained meant I was more informed when talking to other lawyers.
I’m hopeful of breaking into the American market through baseball and ice hockey. Realistically, the first will be baseball with a product launch by 2016.
Katie Cannon, head of sales at Sugru, which makes a multi-purpose mouldable glue
We’ve continued our distribution conversations with a couple of major players [in US retail] who we talked to during the trade mission. Now we ask more discerning questions of all our contacts within the export process and understand the importance of visiting the countries we export to.
Our sales have gone from strength to strength, doubling this year. Our recent crowdfunding success has been phenomenal [Sugru raised £3.5m on equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube]. The focus of the campaign was Sugru’s expansion in the US.
We’ve done more consumer research since the trade mission – it taught us that we still need to get under the skin of some cultures to find the best sales approach.
Tim Rhodes, director of Aquaforno, a portable outdoor cooking stove and wood-fired pizza-oven manufacturer
We’re not exporting to the US as yet but we’ve kept in contact with UKTI. Our UK-made products are too expensive to sell to the Americas, so UKTI are helping us to find a manufacturer in Mexico – there’s a free trade agreement between Europe and Mexico and between Mexico and the US – and we hope to be exporting to the States within a year.
As the pound is strong, it’s hard to export at the moment.How we intend to sell in the US has changed as a result of the trade mission. We would have tried to sell online without it – now we know that is not necessarily the best route.
Emma Shipley, owner and designer of womenswear and accessories brand Emma J Shipley
Our biggest achievements since the trip are launching a new website and securing a special collaboration, which is launching in October. The results of the collaboration will be sold in the US and elsewhere.
We took on a lot of advice from the trade mission about our website, especially the way we branded the business on there. It’s now more focused on me as a designer, with videos of me drawing and pictures of new designs. Each week, we post images from my sketchbook. We’ve also made it easier to search for things and shop on the site.
Our online sales from the US have grown since the trade mission and we’ve launched a new womenswear line. In terms of online sales, the US market is our second biggest after the UK.
Helen Pattinson, director and co-founder of chocolate business Montezuma’s
During the trip, I met with a Whole Foods Market buyer in Atlanta. They’ve since selected seven products that they are going to stock in the southern region of the States (about 45 stores). This is fantastic and was my primary goal when visiting Atlanta. The logistics are not easy, however. I’m now working through the process of re-labelling for the US market and shipping and distribution. I always knew this bit would be tricky but I have been in contact with Ian Stewart, vice consul at UKTI South East [one of the experts involved in the trip], who has helped to put me in touch with the right people.
As a result of the trade mission, we’ve appointed our first marketing agency to look after our public profile – mainly to free up more of my time to focus on export.
Laurence Kemball-Cook, chief executive of Pavegen Systems, which produces flooring tiles that convert wasted kinetic energy into renewable electricity
We’ve been involved in minor projects across the States before, but the trade mission really helped spotlight Pavegen’s potential. Since the visit, we’ve been in discussions with various US clients about using our technology on a large scale within the public space.
As a result of the trade mission, we’ve grown as a company – our team has expanded, with new recruits in sales, engineering, design and PR. We also completed our first-ever crowdfunding round, raising £2.6m and accumulating over 1,500 investors.
Grace Attlee, marketing associate , at design and technology company, Bare Conductive
In the six months since the trade mission, we’ve gained 29 new distributors, mainly located in Europe (and especially in the UK). The business is doing well. Some significant changes include a new product Touch Board starter kit. That was launched in May at the MoMA Design Store in New York, as part of the London Tech City display in the store. They’ve continued to stock our products since then.
We’re about to get a US warehouse (the location has yet to be finalised). And we’ve been able to hire new salespeople, which shows we’re doing well and that our company is attracting new talent.
Max Wiseberg, managing director of hayfever and allergy relief brand, HayMax
We’re talking to a distributor in the US at the moment, who we met after the trade mission, and we’ve applied some of what we learned to that relationship. However, a key message from the trip was that you can’t start exporting to the whole of the US ... and we can only find a distributor that wants to export to the whole country. But the trip probably made me more discerning about opportunities that do arise for HayMax.
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